Aiken, South Carolina Has Been America's Old-Money Polo Colony Since the 1890s

Aiken, South Carolina owes its old-money reputation to its soil. In the 1890s, the financier William C. Whitney and the sportsman Thomas Hitchcock Sr. began wintering in the town, drawn by sandhills that drained quickly after rain and made for far fewer muddy polo fields than the Northeast could offer in winter. What followed was the Aiken Winter Colony: a seasonal migration of Vanderbilts, Whitneys, Astors and Pulitzers, arriving by private rail car each winter to a town built around horses rather than a beach or a casino.

The oldest polo field in the country

Whitney Polo Field, named for William C. Whitney, is recognised as the oldest continually played polo field in the United States, and it remains active today. His son, Harry Payne Whitney, was a ten-goal polo player and Thoroughbred racing enthusiast whose wife, the sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, went on to found New York's Whitney Museum of American Art, a fairly direct line from Aiken's winter sport to a major institution of American art.

View on Google Maps →

A forest kept, not developed

Hitchcock Woods, one of the largest private urban forests in the United States, exists today because the Winter Colony families who owned the land chose to preserve it as riding country rather than subdivide it, eventually placing it under a conservation trust. It remains open to the public for walking and riding, its sand trails including Cathedral Aisle, an oak-lined avenue that has become one of the town's most photographed corners.

Guests along the way

The Winter Colony drew more than horse people. Mining heiress Evalyn Walsh McLean, the last private owner of the Hope Diamond, is said to have once misplaced the jewel during a party at her Aiken cottage and turned the search into part of the evening's entertainment. Franklin D. Roosevelt stayed at the town's Willcox Hotel on visits before and during his presidency, a detail still noted in the hotel's own history today.

Traveller tips

• Aiken has no major commercial airport of its own; Augusta Regional Airport, across the state line in Georgia, is the closest with scheduled flights.
• Hitchcock Woods is free to enter and open to walkers, though it remains an active equestrian trail network, so give horses the right of way.
• The Aiken Winter Colony Historic District can be toured on foot; several of its original cottages are still privately owned.
• Polo season in Aiken generally runs through the winter and spring months; matches are open to spectators.